Afternoons philip larkin essay

The parenthesis employed in the second line suggests an inevitability to the pattern. Larkin cleverly uses enjambement to show this unbroken cycle, thus the structure of the poem perfectly mirrors its content. The poet captures the single-minded pursuit of the children who are ‘so intent on/ finding more unripe acorns’ which shows their innocence.

He explores less than ideal family relationships and gives the period an overall gloomy tone. The poet is often best known for his less than cheery observations. It was he after all who penned the line ‘Life is slow dying’ in his poem Nothing to be Said, and in Dockery and Son he observes: ‘Life is first boredom, then fear’.

But rather than focusing on his own middle age (Larkin was in his mid-thirties when he wrote the poem, in 1959), Larkin examines the lives of others, analysing the existence of a group of young mothers he observes at the local recreation ground. You can read ‘Afternoons’ here.

Although the recreation ground is ‘new’, Larkin counters this by describing the ‘hollows’ of the afternoons, implying that there is a sadness, even an emptiness to these lives. Setting free their children.